Agricultural History Review, Volume 55 Part 1 (2007), p. 145

This textbook is designed to assist French students who are preparing to sit national competitive examinations prior to qualifying as history teachers in secondary schools. ‘Rural societies’ figure in the current syllabi of two of these demanding concours and recently the topic has given rise to several substantive textbooks covering France and adjacent countries. By contrast, Les sociétés rurales (1830–1930) focuses on the three elements of its subtitle: historiography, bibliographic assistance, plus selected but not identical research topics in four countries (France, Germany, Italy, and Spain). Co-ordinated by Nadine Vivier of the Université du Maine, Le Mans and written by four specialists on particular countries, this is not strictly speaking a comparative study. Under the rubric ‘historiography’, attention is drawn to theoretical approaches to the study of rural societies in the past and to the role of historical novels in elucidating rural life. The origins of ‘rural history’ per se are traced through the works of Henri Sée, Marc Bloch, Wilhelm Abel, André Siegfried and other pioneers. The numerous French doctoral theses after 1945 that traced life in the countryside immediately before and subsequent to the coming of the railway age are then reviewed. D evelopments in Germany, Italy and Spain are treated individually and more briefly than changes in France.

Part II does not attempt to assemble a detailed bibliography but rather directs readers to key books, essential journals and websites before offering useful digests of major publications that relate to specific countries and component regions or, more rarely, convey international comparisons. An intriguing map on p.53 plots the spatial pattern of rural history theses in France that cover the period under consideration. Of the three dozen works identified, one is by the geographer Philippe Roudié who analyzed changes in the vineyards of the Bordelais. But if one geographical thesis may be included one is left wondering what criteria were adopted to exclude all the others that relate to the French countryside in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Part III embraces about half of the total book and is comprised of essays that summarize recent research on land ownership and population change across western Europe as a whole (by Nadine Vivier) and then focus on specific themes in individual countries. Thus, Jean-Claude Farcy concentrates on rural migration in France, Clemens Zimmermann examines town-country relations in Germany (from the Rhine to East Prussia), Gloria Sanz Lafuente highlights social protest in rural Spain, and Francis Démier explores the role of large landowners in agrarian life in Italy. These last three chapters benefit from boxed sections that offer brief comparisons with conditions in France.

The text is complemented by a few evocative photographs, several statistical tables and some maps, albeit of varying precision. For example, I was surprised to see that the map on p.115 suggests that in 1900 ninetenths of Italy had similar densities of population (40–80 persons per square kilometre). Did man/land relations in the mountains and valleys of the Alps really have similar expression to those across the hills and plains of Sicily, or is this an unwelcome example of cartographic oversimplification? Why, one wonders, does the mysterious composite map on p.108 depict Italy at a totally different scale from her neighbours, and why is Lorraine labelled ‘Brie’ and the Baltic states as ‘Prusse’ on p.203? In the comparative chronology (pp.204–212) did nothing of rural significance occur in France between 1750 and 1827, or in Germany between 1822 and 1848? Despite these quibbles and irritations on points of detail, this book is a helpful digest of information that certainly made me aware of a good number of publications with which I was not familiar. Without doubt it will be of special value to the next generation of history teachers in France for whom it is designed and to undergraduates pursuing advanced courses on European rural history.